Back to School
by CrossingDistances
Summary: Elena asks Damon to help her adapt to being an immortal high school student. When he goes back to school with her for a day, they both learn some lessons that no classroom teacher could impart. Rated M for later chapters.


**A/N: This story was co-written by Elle & Emme. It was a new writing challenge for both of us and we had so much fun that we decided to set up a FF account for all our co-written stories. We love reviews, so if you like what you read, leave us a note, please! =)**

Chapter 1

Elena knocked on the doorframe of Damon's room, peeking inside. "Damon? Are you decent?"

"Nope." Damon sauntered out of his closet, low-slung jeans barely hanging onto his hips, chest bare and gleaming in the early light. He ran his hand over his mussed hair and shot her a look. "Do you mind?"

She didn't mind at all. Her attraction to this gorgeously formed, physically flawless man was impossible to ignore, but she didn't have to let him see that right now. Choosing to Ignore the question, she walked in and perched on his bed. "Get dressed. I have plans for us today."

Cocking an eyebrow, he sauntered toward her as though he knew she couldn't keep her eyes off him. He only stopped when he was close enough that his knee was nudging against hers. "Those plans require getting dressed? I'm disappointed, Elena."

As usual, her interaction with him was spinning quickly out of her control and she had to force herself to ignore his flirtatious teasing. Pushing him back, she tried to remember her goal. "I'm serious, Damon. The frat party went fine, but I have to learn how to be a vampire in my real life, doing the things I always do. You're still my teacher, right?"

He cast her a look as he plucked his shirt from the back of a chair and slid his arms into it, letting it hang open from his broad shoulders. "I said I would teach you. Since you're _far_ from having it all figured out, then I guess that means I'm still your teacher."

"Good." She hopped off the bed and walked toward him, taking over buttoning his shirt as she looked up into his puzzled eyes. Good. Now she had _him_ off balance. "Then I think you should come with me to school today. Go back to high school for a day to teach me the ropes…"

"Back to school. For a day." He deadpanned as she finished his last button. "You're not very good at the facetious thing, Elena. It _almost_ sounds like you're not kidding."

She smoothed his shirt over his shoulders, flicking her eyes up to his. "You know… you might have fun if you gave it a shot."

"Fun." He stepped back and moved over to the bed, bending over to pull on his shoes. "Remind me again when that definition got changed to pre-pubescent agony…"

"Don't be so dramatic. We could make it fun… like a game or something." She caught his eye as he straightened back up. "Please, Damon? It'll make me feel better if you're there."

Amused at her suggestion, he cocked his head, challenging her. "The only games I've played over the last half-century are bar games. How exactly does that translate into modern middle America lockers and cafeteria food?"

"I don't know…" She fumbled a bit, having expected her genuine 'please, Damon' at the end to be enough to sway him. Searching her mind for an idea, she latched onto the first one that occurred to her. "We could make it a challenge. Every time I pull of something vampire-ish, I get a point. Every time I react like a human, I get a point taken away…"

He didn't seem that impressed, so she pressed a little further.

"And… the opposite for you. You have to spend the day acting like a human high school student. You'll get points and lose points too and then whoever has the most points at the end of the day gets some kind of reward. Like picking what we do for dinner or something." Walking over to him, she picked up his leather jacket from the bed and held it against his chest, letting her gaze meet his. "Come on, Damon… play with me."

For a long moment he just looked at her, studying her face. "And what's Stefan going to say when I walk into history class and steal his place?"

Dropping her eyes, she toyed with the seam on the sleeve of his jacket. "Well… Stefan won't know the difference. He's spending the day hunting without me since I've been slowing him down so much lately."

"Hmm." He was quiet, thinking that over. "So are we talking _dinner_, dinner or just… dinner?"

"You mean..." Elena shook her head. "Oh, no, no. Just dinner. As in human dinner. If I let you have control over _dinner_, dinner, there's no telling what would happen."

A grin broke out over his face as he finally took the jacket from her. "Human dinner is _exactly_ what I had in mind. I'm thinking a cheerleading chick. Or three."

"Damon…" Elena chided, holding back her smile at his obvious amusement. "I meant human dinner as in what humans would eat. I'm not having a cheerleader picnic with you."

Suddenly he was standing far too close to her. "You _said_ you wanted me to teach you to be a vampire. Well, cheerleading picnics are the best part of life." Tilting his head, he brought one hand up to sweep her hair back from her face. "If I'm going to teach you to control yourself, a few fingerfulls of Mystic Falls' finest Type B will go a long way toward getting you through endless high school days."

Whether it was his logic or his proximity, she couldn't seem to find a good argument against him. He was right. She had to get more used to the idea of feeding from humans, and if he was there to make sure she stayed safe, then there really wasn't any problem with ending the day by feeding. Except that agreeing flat out would give him all the power. "Fine," She shrugged one shoulder as though it didn't matter. "But only if you win. If I win then we do human my way. And for the record," Deliberately, she let her eyes drift over him, "I think I'd prefer a jock picnic."

His grin was back again as he towered over her. "Do humans your way? _Elena_." False shock colored his tone. "Does Stefan know about your extra-jockriccular activities?"

Unbidden, her eyes dropped to his lips, noting how soft and pliable they looked curved into a smile the way they were now. The amusement brimming out of him made him even more attractive than he usually was and she had to focus on not inching closer to him even as he invaded her personal space.

Her struggle didn't slip by him and his smirk intensified for a moment before he let her off the hook.

"You know…" He stepped back and slipped his jacket on. "I'm going to win. But if you need an excuse for your vampire side to come out and play… what time does algebra start again?"

Taking a steadying breath, Elena managed to throw him a withering glance. "You're going to win a contest that requires you to act like a human. I'll believe it when I see it." Smirking, she checked her phone. "Looks like I get to see it now. We're already ten minutes late. But you're human and you have to drive to school and stop at every light and walk in at normal speed…"

"Ah-ah." He wagged a finger at her. "Contest starts when we enter the school building. Better hurry… in my day if you arrived late, you got caned."

In a flash, he was gone, leaving Elena staring blankly after him. She gathered herself quickly, muttering his name under her breath as she sped after him with significantly less style.

XOXO

Damon glanced up as Elena finally walked into the classroom, ten minutes after the teacher had begun the lesson. As she walked over and snagged the desk next to him, he appreciated the tight fit of her jeans and the low dip of her blouse. She was glaring, which amused him to no end and as she settled into her desk, he leaned toward her.

"Elena," He pulled out his best reproachful voice, "Don't you know that every minute counts when it comes to getting a good education?"

Her eyes narrowed even further and she pulled notebook out of her bag, whispering to him while she was leaned over, searching for a pencil. "That little speed display was the last of your vampiric activities for the day if you're planning on winning. Maybe you should start playing human by taking notes."

"Way ahead of you." He tapped the notebook he'd snagged out of a loiterer's backpack in the hallway. The page in front of him was already filled with tidy notes and equations. "Be nice to me and _maybe_ I'll let you copy." Mocking her, he held a finger to his lips, shushing whatever she was about to retort with before dutifully copying down the problem from the board, enjoying her consternation.

Elena began copying the equation too, but he could see her stealing glances at his notebook as he worked the problem ahead of the rest of the class. Frowning, she scooted closer to him. "Do you actually understand all this stuff?"

Looking up at the teacher, he leaned toward Elena. "Believe it or not, Stefan was the weaker student when we were kids. He always made everything more complicated than it needed to be – nothing new about that, come to think of it." Turning to look at her, bringing their faces close, he shrugged. "So yes, I do understand this stuff, Nosy Nell. You might too if you you'd shhhhh."

She rolled her eyes at him, but a smile played on her pretty lips as she turned her attention to the problem in front of her. He watched as she followed the steps to solve it, subtly moving his chair closer to hers. When she got stuck, he tilted his notebook towards her, pointing to the step where she'd gone wrong.

The class passed faster than he expected and he found that he was actually enjoying himself. There was always an easy familiarity between them when they were on their own, free to tease and play and talk. Maybe trigonometry class wasn't the best place to have a conversation with her, but it was the perfect place for stolen glances that lingered too long, shared smirks, and casual nudges as he scribbled notes on her paper.

When the bell rang, he was surprised, looking up at her as she stood and packed up her things. As he stood too, she took his arm and pulled him aside, leaning in as she confided, "I'm going to compel Mr. Sydney. I'll make him think I came in on time and participated in the whole class instead of whispering with you in the corner the whole time." Looking up at him with a confident little smirk, she held up a finger. "First point goes to me."

"Mm…no." He pinched her finger between his thumb and forefinger, folding it back down. "Your one will be up against my three. One for arriving on time, one for taking _excellent_ notes, and one for assuming the role of math geek seamlessly."

"No way!" She pushed his hand from hers. "You arrived on time because you vamp sped here. That so doesn't count. And the other two are basically the same thing. If anything, you get one point." She hesitated, considering for a second before a smile shaped her lips. "Okay, two if you share your notes with a classmate in need."

Loving the fun, flirty way she was looking at him, he edged closer to her, sliding his hand to the small of her back as he propelled her forward, whispering in her ear, "You're losing time. This little piggy had roast beef and _this_ little piggy," He nodded toward the teacher, "cried compel me, compel me all the way to the front of the class…"

Elena sent him a playfully exasperated glance over her shoulder as she took the hint and cornered the teacher by his desk. She whispered his new reality to him, holding eye contact the whole time while Damon watched, wondering when compulsion had become a turn-on for him. When she was done, Elena turned around and raised her eyebrows at him as she met him at the door. "It worked. Do I get my point."

He let her see that he was impressed for a just a second before shrugging it off. "Wee, wee, wee…" He taunted, "All the way to economics."

She caught up to him as he walked out the door and started down the hallway, her small hand hooking in his arm to slow him down. "You know, for a rebel in a leather jacket, you're kind of a school nerd with all your diligent note-taking and darting from class to class. We have ten minutes and I want another vampire point to even the score out." Her hip bumped against his. "What's my next task?"

A couple of students passed, agonizing about the test coming up in economics. Somehow he doubted Elena had spent much time preparing for it given she was more focused on learning how to not starve to death or bleed anyone else to death. "Task, huh." He stopped and pulled her off to the side of the hallway, taking particular note of the fact that her hand still rested in the crook of his arm. "Okay. Convince the next teacher to let you cheat off me on the test coming up this period. Without compulsion."

For a second she just looked at him. "Without compulsion?" She repeated slowly, glancing around. "Damon, that's kind of the only trick I have in my vampire bag…"

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, what happens when you discover the person you _really_ need to see things your way just happens to have vervain in their system? You'll have to use other methods to persuade them and if you don't want to resort to violence, you'll need good-ol' traditional persuasion."

"Persuasion. If students could persuade teachers to let them cheat, don't you think they'd have figured it out by now?"

"Not everybody can." He sighed, wondering if she was sometimes deliberately obtuse. "Being a vampire enhances that natural human ability, but you need to practice it." An attractive, bubbly, brunette student walked by and he slipped Elena's hand from his arm. "Watch and learn."

With perfect timing, he stepped out directly into the girl's path, letting her trip over him. Immediately apologetic, he rested his hand on her arm to steady her, turning on his most devastating smile. "I'm so sorry. That was my fault. Here," Bending down, he picked up the book that had slipped out of her hand and handed it to her, keeping his eyes locked on hers. "Let me."

"Thanks," His target smiled back, fumbling as she took the book and betraying how successfully he was entrancing her. "No problem."

"Mmm," He took a step closer to the girl, his lips twitching charmingly. "No… no problem at all. Bumping into you is a pleasure. I'm Damon. What's your name?"

"Lacey." She held out her hand and he wrapped his around it, merely holding it instead of shaking it.

"Well it's _very_ nice to meet you, Lacey. You know…" Damon leaned in conspiratorially, "I think I'm in the mood to bump into you again. And maybe again after that. Maybe we could… bump into each other for lunch today..."

Lacey tittered mindlessly, boring him already. But he kept his charming smile, hyper aware of Elena standing a few feet to his right.

"I'd love to have lunch with you, Damon." Lacey flipped her hair not-so-subtly, batting mascara-caked eyelashes at him. "But I'm supposed to eat with my boyfriend off campus. I don't think he'd like it if I cancelled to be with you…"

Turning up the charm, Damon let his eyes drift over her. "Trust me. I _know_ he wouldn't like it. But I bet you would." Without using compulsion, Damon leaned forward. "Have lunch with me, Lacey. I can think of lots of ways for us to… pass the time."

She tittered again and Damon had to bite his lip to keep from laughing as Elena subconsciously tightened her fists.

"What do you say?" He pressed Lacey, letting his fingers brush against her wrist as he still held her hand. "Ditch your boyfriend and have lunch with me instead?"

After a moment of pretended conflict, Lacey looked up at him coyly. "All right. Meet me outside the picnic table under the big tree on the left of the school yard."

Lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed the back of Lacey's hand. "I can't wait."

As Lacey walked away, swaying her lips a little too much, Damon moved cautiously back toward Elena. "And that," He couldn't stop the smirk, "Is how you do that."

Elena's eyes narrowed on this face and she crossed her arms over her chest, unintentionally looking like a woman on the verge of a jealous tirade. "That's your big skill demonstration? You picked up a girl. That's totally different than convincing a teacher to let me cheat on an exam."

"It's the art of persuasion."

"Please." She huffed and set her jaw, glaring up at him. "She would have gone to lunch with you if you'd crooked a finger at her from across the room."

Tilting his head, he edged her closer to the wall. "Is that a commentary on her or my irresistible sex appeal, charm, and good looks?"

Her breath caught a little as she looked up at him, their chests almost close enough to brush. "It's a commentary on that not being a fair demonstration of this so-called skill you want me to use."

She wasn't going to give him a straight answer so he stepped away with a shrug. "Hey, you wanted a task."

As he looked down the hall, he saw Bonnie and Caroline in the distance and decided he wasn't in the mood to interact with any more high school girls. Reaching out, he took Elena's arm in his hand and steered her around the corner. "Don't look now, but Barbie and Witchy are headed our way. We can't let them make me late for my first high school exam in over a century…"

He nudged her into the economics room, smirking down at her as she pushed his hands away, still irritated with his persuasion display. With a dark look for him, she straightened her shirt and glanced at the teacher. "At least give me a hint. Where do I start?"

Provoking her further, Damon drew on his best teenage girl voice. "Oh, Mr. Kleinhenz. I had the worst weekend. My house got broken into, my sister's in the hospital and the Mayans landed on my front doorstep this morning and refused to let me study ..."

"You're so helpful." Elena muttered. "I'll remember this when I assign your next task."

"Just go on." He replied, not fazed by her threat in the slightest.

He snagged a seat toward the back of the class while he watched her again approach a teacher, this time with her eyes hooded by heavy lids rather than open and piercing. His throat closed as she swept her hair over her shoulder and ran her hand over her arm, shrugging innocently as she explained to the teacher that her family had suffered a horribly tragedy over the weekend and she'd had to help out instead of studying. She was so distraught that nothing was sticking in her poor little head anyway.

A shakily vulnerable hand toyed with the delicate necklace she was wearing as she bit her lip and looked up at the teacher. Couldn't he let her off the hook this once? She had a friend who could help her get through the test and then she'd study the material on her own and make sure she knew all of it because her education was very important to her.

The teacher resisted, but Elena quickly had him wrapped around her little finger. It didn't take long for him to cave and suggest that he might look the other way if he saw her peering at someone else's test. Elena smiled her brightest smile and leaned forward, conspiratorially whispering her thanks. As she turned to join Damon, her eyes connected with his and the sense of accomplishment and power he saw reflected in the brown pools made his breath hitch in his chest.

Elena slid onto the bench, sitting close beside him as she cocked a delicate brow. "Point?"

"Point." He let his eyes drop to her mouth. "That's quite a silver tongue you have there." She flushed under his gaze and he smirked, sliding his blank test away from her and out of sight. "Next task… mind reading."

Immediately the playfully flirtatious light in her eyes dimmed. "No fair," She accused, leaning toward him. "I just mentally manipulated that teacher into letting me cheat. I think I've earned a break, don't you?"

He had to admit she had a point. "Someone didn't study…" He chuckled darkly at her consternation as he moved closer to her, laying the test back between them. Beginning to read the questions, he realized modern economics might not be his thing after all.

Surprised, she placed her exam next to his, waiting for him to answer the first question. "You're giving in?" She whispered, looking around to make sure no one was observing them. "You're a softie after all. Here I was preparing to invade your mind…"

"Hmm, well here's a hint," He answered the first question 'B' on a whim backed by something that resembled logic, "Big Bad Wolf was born in another century. Economics when I was alive didn't remotely resemble whatever this stuff is. But…" He shot her a smirk, "Feel free to invade my mind anytime. Just don't blame me if you find half a dozen naked cheerleaders there instead of anything useful."

"You're disgusting." She sighed and pulled her test toward herself again and scanned the questions. He thought she was about to really focus but then she cast him a glance. "Blonde or brunette cheerleaders?"

"Come see for yourself." He teased, waggling his eyebrows at her.

A smile touched her lips as she slid closer to him on the bench, her side now brushing against his. At his curious glance, she shrugged. "I just made him let me cheat. I should at least look like I'm following through. But… since you're not really any help after all, you can focus on your next human task while I fail this exam."

"And what's that?"

Elena looked around the room. "These people aren't just human blood bags. They're people. If you were a human, you'd take the time to notice the little things about them that had nothing to do with how easy they'd be to eat."

"Would I, though?" He leaned in to whisper in her ear, drawing the attention of several students.

"Shh." She nudged him away. "Your human task is to look around and come up with things you can observe about the students that have nothing to do with snatch, eat, erasing them. Find their human connections."

He seemed surprised at her request and glanced around the room, hesitating before gaining his cockiness back. "Twenty-five people - twenty-five points."

She caught his hand as it rested on her knee and started to slide up her leg. "Behave." She ordered. "And this is worth three points at the most – if you impress me. Now _you_ shhh."

XOXO

Elena tucked her hair back behind her ear and bent over the test, clearly cueing Damon to get started on his new assignment. He scowled, partially because he didn't appreciate being ignored in favor of Keynesian theory, and partially because he suddenly didn't like the idea that Elena thought of him as solely a human eating machine. Much as that had been a point of pride for him for years, Damon had made changes and her apparent failure to notice bothered him more than he cared to admit. He cast his eyes around the room, spotting the busty bimbo he'd invited to the blood buffet for lunch. He contemplated her for a moment, then nudged Elena deliberately hard enough so that her pencil would slip. "She likes blue."

With a scowl, Elena erased the dark line that now diagonally decorated her exam. Following his gaze, she leaned toward him. "Because her backpack is blue? You can do better."

"Come on," Damon protested. "Eye makeup, necklace, blouse, notebook ... she might as well wear a sign that says Fifty Shades of Cerulean. I bet that's also why she's having lunch with me."

Abandoning her exam for the moment, Elena gave him a withering look. "I think it had less to do with the color of your eyes than the way you were using them for multiple rounds of eye sex in the middle of the hallway." There was a distinctly petulant note to her voice as she muttered, "Or maybe she just likes men who faun all over her."

"Whoa." Damon grinned. "If I didn't know better, I'd say your favorite color is green. As in jealous, much?"

"Don't flatter yourself." Elena shifted awkwardly, not-so-subtely inching away from him. "I was just pointing out that you fell all over her, literally and figuratively. It was beneath you."

"That's exactly where she wanted to be."

"You're disgusting." Her glare had a little more punch than usual behind it before she picked her pencil back up and refocused on her exam. "Let me know when you've come up with something more insightful than someone's favorite color."

He watched her go back to work, then pulled his gaze away, unwilling to admit that he was actually a little sorry to have pushed her quite so hard to admit she didn't like other women ogling him. Bored, he scanned the classroom, eyes drifting over the stoner in the corner, who practically had smoke rings coming out of his ears, to the row of self-satisfied jocks who, instead of completing the exam were busily hissing and pointing at a redheaded female student built like a brick. She herself paid no attention and worked her way methodically through each problem, eyes never straying from the page. Abruptly, Damon realized something. He elbowed Elena. "The girl with the plastic hibiscus in her hair? She's blind."

"Hold on." Elena brutally erased one of her answers, chewing on her lip as she contemplated. With a sigh, she re-circled the same answer and glanced up. "You mean Heather? Yeah, she is. What gave her away?"

"The way she's drawing her fingers over the paper. Plus, she's ignoring four boys who really want to be 'beneath her' and I don't think it's because of her innate modesty, given what her sweatshirt says. She's not ignoring them. She just can't see them."

"Not bad." She conceded, all traces of her earlier irritation gone. A sigh escaped her and she glanced around at all the other students, most of whom were busy working. "Remind me to make more time to study in between vampire crises. At this rate I'm going to have to compel the entire school staff to get my diploma."

He batted her hand aside and peered at the problem she was struggling with. "Your verbal skills are so much better than your arithmetic."

"My verbal skills are still nothing compared to yours." She sent him a slightly disgruntled look as she corrected the arithmetic error he was pointing to. "You're the one who can get girls to sneak around with you behind their boyfriends' back just by rolling their name off your tongue." The words escaped her before she had time to process them and she flushed, berating herself for bringing up the subject again. And for making it so painfully obvious that she was one of those girls.

He eyed her curiously, tempted to make a comment about how girls snuck off with him to get a literal taste of his name-rolling tongue, then decided against it when a weary bitterness suddenly bubbled up. "Girls who sneak around are looking for a way out." And he was so often the vehicle for their escapist tendencies, without ever seeing the other side of the dating equation. "I take it back," he muttered under his breath, looking away from Elena, "My math skills are worse than yours."

His eyes narrowed as he picked up on a small girl toward the back of the room, her shrunken frame hunched so far over that she looked more like a ribcage than human being. Irritated for reasons he didn't have any interest in analyzing, Damon got up and walked over to her, using yet another vampire trick which he needed to teach Elena-the art of invisibility. He leaned over the girl, who looked up at him with sunken, startled gray eyes and muttered, "You're going to walk out of this class and EAT."

Damon's whispered command to the shy, shrunken girl everyone else ignored erased everything else from Elena's mind. When he sat down beside her again, she stared at him, her always present affection for him bubbling to the surface, forcing her to clamp down on her instincts. His expression held just a tint of defensiveness and she knew he didn't want her to make a big deal about the nice thing he'd done, no matter how much it meant to her. Wanting to accommodate him, she simply nodded as she turned back to her exam. "Three points. Guess it's my turn to play catch up.

"Finished?" Damon replied tersely, indicating the test.

She took a second to answer the last question and blew out a breath. "Yep. Guess so." Glancing over at him, she tested his mood with a small smile. "Unless you feel the need to correct any more of my math..."

He wanted to kiss her. The urge was nothing new, but usually there was at least a reasonable trigger. In lieu of the ever forbidden kiss, Damon decided it was time for a change of scenery. "How do you think you did?" he asked.

"I think I did as well as anyone who hasn't come to half the classes and never cracked a book can do..."

"Hmmm." Damon thought that over for a moment, then got up again. He threaded his way through the desks, picking up on the various levels of satisfaction and frustration based on student heartbeats. Reaching the front, he confronted the surprised teacher, who didn't have time to demand an explanation for why he was out of his seat before Damon was staring into his eyes, working his magic.

"You're going to give everybody in the class As on their tests. Tomorrow, you're going to re-teach Keynesian theory in a way that actually makes sense. You're going to follow up on skeleton girl and make sure she gets any help she needs to keep from joining the ranks of the walking dead. And you're going to look the other way while Elena and I bust out of this joint ten minutes early." Satisfied, he stalked back to Elena and caught her elbow. "We're outta here."

Elena let Damon pull her from the room and followed him down the hallway and around the corner into an empty classroom. She'd only barely had time to grab her bag before they'd made their exit and her belongings were skewed every which way. But she ignored that, feeling light and a little giddy as she dropped her bag on the nearest chair. She laughed as she turned to him and impulsively hugged him, loving the way he made everything just a little more exciting and unpredictable. "So... what do I have to do to get you to come to school with me every day?"

Her hug took him off guard and he just stood there stupidly for a second, feeling her soft body pressed affectionately into his. Coming to his senses, Damon slid his arms around her and hugged her back tightly before she could decide to change her mind. He could've easily stood there for the rest of the day, just reveling in the light fragrance of her hair and the sudden way she seemed to trust him. Trust. His bubble popped sadly and he took a step back, unable to violate that trust by indulging his whim to cup her backside and pull her in very, very tight. The goofy, girly grin on her face drew a matching smile from him. She smiled so rarely these days ... "Bribery's always appropriate," he answered her question with a grin.

He was adorable when he got flustered. Which had happened exactly three times ever, by her count. She perched on the teacher's desk, letting her legs swing over the edge. "I'll keep that in mind. So... you scored us an extra ten minutes but you lost a point with your compulsion." She smirked smugly, testing him a little. "Better make good use of the ten minutes. What's your plan?"

She was flirting with him. Flat out flirting, without any hint of the usual reticence. Damon warred with temptation for a second, then decided that it was safe to flirt back as long as only words were involved. Otherwise, the desire to kiss her breathless in the deserted classroom was just too tempting, as was the sudden visual of laying her down on the teacher's desk and ...Stop. Putting on a lighter persona, he sauntered toward her with a small smirk. "My plan involved something vampiric. But if it's going to cost me the contest, maybe I won't teach you a new neat trick after all."

Interest piqued, Elena considered. "Okay... I guess I can grant you a reprieve from point loss until the next class. Teach me."

He walked over to a window and yanked it open easily, snapping through the safety locks as if they were toothpicks. "Come here." He extended his hand.

She wasn't sure if he was just gesturing to her or if he was offering her hand, so she decided to assume the latter. Why she loved touching him so much wasn't a question she necessarily wanted to answer right now, but she couldn't deny that it was the case. His hand felt good in hers as she linked their fingers and she suppressed a sigh, knowing that she was heading down a path that led straight to him and despite all the warning signs along the way, her pedal was pressed to the metal.

Refocusing, she cocked an eyebrow at him. "So… is this where we transform into bats and fly to the next building?"

"It's ravens," he corrected, "not bats. Didn't you ever hear the rumor that Poe's beloved cousin-wife was turned?"

"How would I? I haven't been to English in weeks."

"Excuses, excuses. And it's not like that's something you'll ever hear from a textbook." Still holding her hand-no sense wasting an opportunity for a little skin on skin, however chaste-Damon climbed onto the extremely narrow window ledge and balanced there with ease. "Next time we're in Boston, I'll introduce you and Virginia. You have more in common than you think." He tugged at their interlaced fingers. "Come on up, Batwoman."

"Up there." Elena gave him a skeptical look. "With you. On that tiny spot. And here I thought you wanted me to be more careful..." Very cautiously, Elena eased out of the window, clinging to Damon's hand and, briefly, his legs as she attempted to right herself. When she was settled, she let out a breath. "Okay...now what?"

"Now ... we do a little non-marsupial flying." Damon wrapped his arm around her waist and, without giving her any warning, sprang upward in the direction of the roof.

Thrown, Elena clutched at him, holding on to his shoulders and pressing her face against his neck as the wind he created whipped at her. When they landed, she stayed right where she was, taking a moment to get her breath back and to sneak a little more time wrapped against him like this, his strong arms around her. "A little heads-up next time would be great, Damon. You know, if you think of it..."

She was obviously breathless. Problem was, so was he. Her face pressed into his neck, her fingers fisted into the expensive fabric of his John Varvatos shirt-Damon swallowed down a rising tide of desire and gently but firmly disentangled himself. "Ten minute's down to about five. Look around," he suggested, waving an arm at the landscape spread out before them. The school building was 8 stories high and the roof provided a fantastic vantage point over their hometown.

Elena took a few seconds to look around, scanning the landscape of what appeared to be a simple, peaceful little town. In the distance, she caught sight of the old-fashioned boardinghouse. "I love this place." She sighed, moving to stand next to him again. "Messed up as it is. It looks pretty and normal from up here." He was silent and practicality won out over nostalgia. "But... why do I suspect that getting down is going to be more nerve-wracking than coming up was?"

"Heads up." Damon pulled her in close again and took a flying leap, making sure to let his much larger body absorb the full brunt of the impact as they touched down on the concrete at the back of the building.

"I stand corrected." Elena breathed, steadying herself by gripping his hand as she stepped back. "The heads up makes all the difference."

"Your turn," Damon said, trying not to notice how her wind-reddened cheeks and tousled hair looked even more attractive than the norm.

She let out a laugh. "My turn? To what? Jump you to the roof?"

"Or the moon." He shrugged. "Wherever the whim strikes. And then you get to compel your next professor to forget that we're late ..."

"I'm so going to win the contest." She eyed him, trying to figure out the best way to approach holding onto him. Hesitantly, she wrapped her arms around his waist, but found she couldn't get any leverage to jump and ended up just looking up at him stupidly. Next she tried standing at his side, wrapping one arm around his waist, the other hand resting on his hip. That didn't seem to work either. Frowning, she took both of his hands in hers and stood in front of him, wondering if that would be enough to actually take him with her if she managed to get off the ground.

When she looked at him, she found him barely suppressing his amusement. A small laugh escaped her too and she confessed. "Okay I don't know how to do this. You're all big and bulky and I have no idea how to try to lift you..."

"It's about the feet, not the arms." Damon flexed his knees slightly and gave a small jump, lifting Elena a few feet up with him. "Use your ankles and knees. Like you were on a trampoline. Or, you know, you could just keep experimenting with ways to put your arms around me."

She flushed and rolled her eyes at him as she experimentally placing his hands on her hips, not commenting on the way his fingers curled just at the curve of her backside. "You hold onto me, then." She instructed, laying her hands on his biceps and gripping him, too. Bending, she flexed her muscles and sprung up, drawing on childhood memories of trampoline jumping. To her surprise, they flew up into the air and she suddenly remembered that she hadn't been aiming for anything. Attempting to direct them mid-air, she sent them tumbling back onto the roof, with him sprawled over her chest, their legs dangling off the edge. "Mph." She let her head fall back onto the ground. "That's going to take some practice."

"Practice?" Damon lifted his own head and gave her the full measure of the patented Salvatore grin as he tugged on a windblown curl. "I'd say your jump is pretty much perfected already. Just, you know, maybe try landing on top of me instead of the other way around ... like you said. Big and bulky. Equals extra cushioning."

"I'll try to remember that for next time." She groaned and shifted underneath him, her eyes nearly rolling back in her head as she felt the full length of him pressed so closely against her. "Big and bulky also equals heavy, by the way. Are you planning on staying here all day or were you thinking we might make it to history?"

"Staying like this all day ... tempting. Very tempting." Damon enjoyed her beneath him for one more second, then did the gentlemanly think and rolled off and to the side. "But. I'm all about making history ... get us down, flygirl." .

Elena sat up, shook out her hair, and dusted off her clothes. "People are going to think I snuck up to the roof to roll around with a boy." She quipped, rising to her feet. When he joined her, she slid her arms around him again, waiting for him to do the same. "Oh, God." She murmured. "I would feel really bad if I killed you right now. Hold on tight." Squeezing her eyes shut, she jumped down, somehow instinctively slowing them as they touched the ground, this time landing on their feet. Taking a deep breath, she smiled up at him, feeling accomplishment and happiness trickling through her. Because of him. Always because of him.

"Better that time?"

Unable to help himself, he pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. "Definitely improving." Not wanting to disrupt their easy camaraderie, he backed off then and slung his arm around her shoulders in tried-and-true "I'm your good friend and nothing else" fashion. "Lead the way. History waits for no one. Unless you're a vampire who can compel a teacher to restart the lesson ..."


End file.
